Thunderstruck
by Audrey T
Summary: I loved him 'cause he was like me; he wanted love-hard, and passion. But his passion held rage and he didn't squeeze like I did, he crushed. And in the end, his love left bruises on my skin and on my heart.
1. Chapter 1

And then I met James and I loved him 'cause he was like me; he wanted love-hard, and passion. But his passion held rage and he didn't squeeze like I did, he crushed. And in the end, his love left bruises on my skin and on my heart, and I was clumsy, on my legs and with my heart, so I hid it well and made excuses and Renée believed it 'cause she wanted to and it was easier and she didn't love enough where it counted.

And then one day it was too much. We fucked, when we used to make love, and then I cried and then he raged, and then 'Fuck you,' and then _ow_ because he'd never done it that hard. Red speckled across his chest and running over my lips and into my mouth, nothing but hot copper I wouldn't swallow so it lands against the collar of my shirt and ruins it.

That's hard for Renée to ignore, so when I get home she coddles me and whispers _sorry_ softly over and over like a prayer, and I'd like to really pray, to ask someone to make it better, but neither of us have ever learned how, so we stay huddle on my bedroom floor 'til there's no more tears or _sorrys_ left to give.

When I wake up, she's gone and I can't say I'm surprised. There's faded red stained against my face and my palms, so I take a shower, scrubbing so hard it hurts and then stings and for three mornings after, I wake up to peeling skin and scabs on my chin. The shirt, I bury, following some fleeting logic that tells me it's time to start new and fresh, to hold on to the memory, to never forget, but to let go of the love and the hurt because I don't want to be like Charlie, old and alone and pining for something I can never have again.

But then it's a month later and I still can't let go. I'm still hurting and pining and loving and ready to forgive and it's the scariest feelings I've ever had because I can feel the Charlie creeping into me and I need it out before it settles. And I'm terrible for that, for wanting to cast him out even though he's my father and still loves me and I love him. But sometimes I feel more sorry than love and it makes feel terrible all over again. But I can't feel sorry for him now, I'm using up all the sorry and there just isn't any left.

And then one day I'm in the backyard, digging in the dry sandy dirt and then I'm wearing it, stinking and itchy and still red all over. I wear it all day, when I clean my room and Renée's too, and then the living room, and then I'm cleaning the kitchen, clearing out the fridge, under the sink, the cupboards, dumping all the old cracked dishes and swearing I'll go out and replace them as soon as I get some cash in my pockets.

Renée gets home late and with someone, and they find me on all fours scrubbing at the tiny grimy corners of the bathroom floor, the door closing me in with all kinds of fumes swirling around my head. My eyes are stinging and my head is fluttering and my throat's on fire but there's this ring of yellow around the bolt keeping the toilet secured that I still have to get to. It's been soaking under bleach for the past half-hour and if they just give me a few more minutes, I know I can clean it and leave the porcelain white and shining like it's supposed to be.

But this someone she's brought home is pulling me up with his hands under my armpits and, gosh, he must be strong 'cause though my head feels light as a feather, my body's got to weigh a solid ton. My arms feel so heavy, like they're gonna slip out the sockets any minute, and my feet, when they drag against the floor, I'm sure I'm leaving little scrape marks against the weathered wood that runs along the hallway.

When we get into the bedroom, he's trying to get me on Renée's big bed but I'm fighting because it's clean, too clean, and I'm just irreparably dirty and I know the minute he lays me on top of it, it'll be ruined. Like the shirt. Like James. Like Charlie. Like Me. But Someone does it anyway. He braces his arm along my back and hooks my knees over the other and then, so gently it hurts, he places me against the blankets and I'm sinking in, being swallowed by all the soft and the scent of clean, and as if that weren't bad enough, as if he's purposely trying to make it worse, he passes the pads of his fingers across my cheek, pushing the greasy dirty hair off my face in a move so gentle and intimate and full of care that I shatter.

I lose myself in all the pain and sad and lonely among the sheets and pillows and blankets and I miss James so much I think I'm bleeding because of it. 'Cause even if his love was too fierce and ferocious, it was still love and it's still better than the pale and watery version Renée holds for me. The love that's so easily outshone by Someone, this someone I've never even met and who's never even met me, yet he's looking down at me like I matter with serious worry in his eyes, and in that moment I know that if he weren't here, Renée would have said, 'Okay,' and let me get that little ring of yellow around that bolt that tethers the toilet to the floor. Because she always wants to give space even when that's the last thing I need or want, because she never got space from her mom. And because she loves too soft.

Her love's like taffy. Starbursts love. Sweet and solid but light and ductile. You can pull and pull and chew and chew and it won't break, but it won't fight either. It keeps bending and changing and it's nice at first but it gets tiring and before you can get the best of it, before you can use it up and get out all the sweet, it slips down your throat and you swallow it whole. And she just lets you.

As I'm crying and gasping, she just stands back and watches but it's like she's not even really there. She watches as Someone sits at the end of the bed and puts my head in his lap. She watches as he strokes my hair and uses his sleeve to wipe the wet slimy mess my face has become. She listens when he tells her to fetch some warm water and a rag, and when she returns with it, she watches as he cleans my face right, with barely there strokes and silky cooing words, and I know I won't wake up tomorrow with stinging skin and scabs on my cheeks, and I want to tell her that this is what I needed, and not her space and her absence. But then I look at her and something inside me goes gooey 'cause she's just so grateful that he's here to do all the things she can't and I can see it, I can see the soft love building in her eyes and I wonder if maybe this time, Someone will be the right one.

And it kind of gnaws at me and brings back the sad and lonely because she might have found Someone but I haven't and I hate that I'm so much like her though I try so hard not to be. My heart torn out and chopped up and bleeding all over the sheets right in front of everyone and I'm looking all soft-eyed at her soft love because I still want it – love, even if it keeps killing me. And I know that I'll go after it again, and I'll love too hard because Renée loved too soft and I'll try to let go too soon 'cause Charlie never did.

They've ruined me.

Someone stays with us that night. He tells Renée to help me into a bath, and she does, tentatively helping me shed my clothes. It's silent as I sit bare-bottomed on the toilet with my knees against my chest and my cheek against my knees. She fills the tub with warm water and fragrant bubbles and hums to herself as she does it. As it fills, she's digging under the sink and finding little things like a red and white toy boat and a small cool-pink water mug she swiped from the hospital a couple of years before.

'His name is Phil,' she quietly answers a question I didn't ask, and that's all that's said.

This time she stays, massaging a soapy rag across my back and shoulders, massaging her fingers through my foamy hair, rinsing it all clean with the cool-pink water mug. When I'm not so much a mess, she pulls the little rubber plug out of the tub and I sit watching as the water recedes, feel it pulling softly at my skin, calling me down with it. But it doesn't take me. It just takes all the dirty and some of the not-good-enough and by the time I've stood and let the shower wash away the awful residue, I've fallen in love with baths. I'm addicted.

Renée wraps a big fluffy white towel around me, a souvenir she took from that hotel in Phoenix, and leads me into my room, pulling out some underwear and a clean t-shirt for me to wear to bed. She combs through my hair and then brushes it and soon it's dry enough to be let alone.

When there's a knock on the door, she says _come in_ 'cause I can't and then Phil's stepping in with a pink mug in one hand and plate in the other. He sets the plate on the bed next to me, on my right because Renée's still on my left, and presses the mug into my hand. It's warm and I can smell the sweet chocolate as the steam rises.

'_Okay_,' he says, and it's a question and a statement and a promise all neatly wrapped and handed to my heart.

He ruffles his hand in my hair and touches his fingers to Renée's cheek and walks out again, and for the tiniest of moments I panic, but then I hear the radio playing and something slow and sweet like honey's leaking out and I know he's staying.

And Renée stays too. She sits at my side, a silent companion, as I sip the hot chocolate and chew the peanut butter sandwich, and I smile 'cause it's my favorite and I know he couldn't have known unless she'd told him.

Once I'm done, she takes the mug and the plate and places it on the dresser top. She waits until I'm settled in bed, arms hugged around my pillow, and unfurls the blanket folded at the end of the bed, opening it up with the flick of her wrists and a flourish. And when the blanket floats back down to cover my body, it covers my head too and she just leaves it alone, and I smile because now I know she remembers that's how I like it.

And then I'm really grateful for this Phil, because while I wasn't looking, he changed her.

The next morning I wake up to pancake smell and light giggles and rumbling laughter. The sun is up and happy and streaming through my net curtains that let the salt-air through, and it's making everything sparkle and shine like new and I feel a little new too. So I lay there in my bed, finally feeling clean enough to deserve it and really appreciate it, and listen as Renée and her Phil clang around dishes and giggle and laugh too loud and shush each other and then giggle and laugh some more. And it feels nice, and though I feel the sad and lonely sneaking in, I only let it get as far as my little pinky toe and then I hold it there and it's not so hard because today I'm lucky. I'm so full on just-comfortable that there's really no room for it anywhere else and it doesn't struggle so hard to consume me because it's kind of mellowed by the peace. And I am too.

Eventually the banging of pots cease and I hear solid footsteps padding down the hall and getting nearer. There's a knock and it nearly stops my heart because suddenly the reality of distance is right back here in my mind and I panic that it was all just for one night and Renée's back to her goddamn space. But then the voice gives my heart the needed squeeze to start again 'cause it's Phil at the door and he's asking if I'm awake.

I don't answer and it's not because I can't, I just don't want to. If I do, I might break it and that's the last thing I want. So I pull the blanket back and slide my legs off the bed and put my feet on the floor that's just-warmed by the filtered sun. And he's patient, 'cause even though I haven't responded and he doesn't know if I'm reacting to his voice at all, he doesn't knock or speak again, he just waits and gives me time, and I wonder for a moment how I can come to feel so differently to what amounts to be the same thing. Time and space has always meant distance but right now he's giving it both to me and I find that I don't mind at all.

When I open the door, he's leaning against the frame, and he just smiles this easy-smile and says, '_Breakfast_,' and it's a question and a statement and a promise all neatly wrapped and I wonder if he's trying to spoil my heart.

Breakfast is quiet and light. We sit at the round wooden table and with just the three of us, everyone's sitting next to everyone and it's the nicest morning I've had in so long. I notice Phil and Renée keep the scrambled eggs between them, as far away from me as the little table allows, and I swell up a little inside because they know. She knows and she told him and he remembered and they're cool with it and trying to keep me safe from it, and it's just eggs but still, I swell up a little inside.

Phil is watching us both with this sweet love and it's almost too much to bear but it's just enough. And Mom's watching him with a similar look plus her soft love on top of it and I hope, for her sake, that the sweet and the soft is enough to hold them both 'cause I don't know Phil but I know he's good and I want him to stick around.

The radio is on and something fluffy and sweet is playing, someone plucking sunshine and air from a guitar and singing about blue skies and how life's just great, and I just-believe him.


	2. Chapter 2

In the weeks that follow, we have more mornings like this. More nights like this too.

Phil's like a magnet, pulling Renée and I together for all sorts of absurd events like days on the beach and nights at the movies, and mostly his baseball games. He's made a habit of turning up early on days he doesn't have training, to help me make dinner, chopping vegetables and making silly jokes, flagging down Renée when she isn't home and keeping conversation light and flowing when she is. On several occasions, when not even he could pin her down, he stays and we spend those dinners alone.

We've started a simple routine. It seems a little invasive at first, _prying_, but I quickly grow to relish it. He asks me questions and I ask him some too. At first it's just polite chatter – he asks me how my day went and I tell him about a Trig test or an afternoon at the beach with Becca and Rache – but then it turns into something much more valuable.

Phil's a problem solver, it's just what he does, so when I let slip that the Wrangler's making a weird noise, I wake up the next morning to Renée's keys taped to my door and my jeep missing from the drive, and when I get home that afternoon, it's back in the in garage and the funny noise is gone. And after I bitch about the gas prices that are sapping what little funds I manage to save, the meter never dips below half tank again. And when I tell him about the trouble I'm having with this overly flirty, but otherwise really nice freshman, he gives me well needed advice on how to handle little Seth Clearwater and his unfaltering crush. And the thing I like the most about Phil is that I don't have to beg or chase him around, the way I do with Renée. He's always just there...doing. It takes a while to get used to, but when I do, I realize that I really like it.

He affects Renée too. He makes her more focused, more conscious of the other people around her and how she relates to them, especially me. And while things aren't perfect, they're just _better_. She's around more and paying a little more attention and there's edible food in the fridge more often and they've even gotten into a tiny little routine with the laundry – he scours the house, popping into every room and collecting all the dirty laundry, they wash together, they fold together, and when it's all done, I come home to a basket of neatly folded, clean clothes at the foot of my bed. And it's just really nice.

But pretty soon Renée tries to ruin it. She's developed this deathly fear of being 'tied down' and suddenly she's seeing all the things Phil does differently. Suddenly his care is controlling, his reminders are chastisements, and all the things he does just reminds her of all the thing she doesn't do. Then she's frustrated and yelling and calling him pushy and a tyrant and all the tings she knows isn't really true but has to say anyway. All the things she felt but never said with Charlie. All the things she regrets not saying when she should've, before things got too suffocating and there was nothing left to say but goodbye and then flee. Then Phil's gone for a week, and then two, and she's missing more than ever and I hate her a little for it, but I love him a little more because even though I don't see him, I can feel that he's around, I know he's there. Every few days I wake up to a full tank of gas and plump tires, and I get a call from a sports shop offering me that after-school job I desperately need.

By the end of the third week, Renée relents and they go away for a long weekend. When they return, there's a ring on her finger and one on his too, and they've got cheesy photobooth pictures of her in a white party dress with too much boobs showing and him in a t-shirt with a picture of a tux on it, and their smiles are so big they nearly eclipse all of the silly and all that love just shines through.

At the end of the night, after a fancy dinner to celebrate, Phil finds me at my desk finishing up an English essay and hoping he doesn't notice the smell that's probably lingering on my clothes and the sheets and just floating in the air. He apologizes for getting hitched without me and for stealing Renée away without my permission or presence. I want to tell him she was never really mine to give away anyway and that I'm not upset because even though things have been better between Renée and I since he came around, it certainly hasn't been anywhere near perfect or even remotely normal. She's my mom and I love her, but we've been living more like sisters or friends or maybe just roommates for such a long time that I can't act like I have any real claim to her.

Instead, I tell him that it's fine, _'Really'_, and I think that's the first lie I've ever told him. And though those kinds of lies are commonplace between Renée and I, it feels thick and dirty in my mouth when I speak them to Phil. I say I'm happy for them, and really I am, and then I offer to bake them a cake as a late wedding gift. But Phil doesn't buy it, which is a relief, and promises to rope Renée into another ceremony that I can be a part of, and pretty soon after, there's a date for this new re-wedding and I'm helping Renée with handmade invitations that are filled with sand and little pieces of seaglass we collect off the shore.

The wedding's small and intimate and kind of silly since they're already married but it's beautiful just the same. Charlie's invited but he doesn't show. James isn't, and he does. The wedding's on a Saturday, on a fairly secluded portion of the beach, and he spends the ceremony circling the outskirts, dressed in dark slacks and a cream linen shirt, his long blond hippie hair pulled back into a ponytail that sits at the base of his skull. I try not to pay too much attention to his lingering form and resolve to tactfully avoid him for the entire evening, but later there's a bonfire that gets pretty casual pretty fast and before I know it, he's next to me with his arm over my shoulders and his voice in my ear, and I don't want to cause a scene so I don't do anything to stop him.

Phil and Renée are mostly in their own little bubble until they make a toast, raising their glasses of champagne in my direction, and Phil quirks an eyebrow at me – curious about the stranger sitting next to me. Renée doesn't even recognize James, she's seen so little of him in the time we were together, and Phil's never met him, so it's not until Rachel and Becca's dad Billy whispers his name to Phil that things get crazy. Before I even know anything's up, Phil's on top of James and it takes Billy's son Jacob and a couple of Phil's baseball buddies to pull the two apart. By then James is spitting fire and cursing at me, yelling that I'm a fucking bitch and saying I'm so much more trouble than I'm worth, and then Phil's going for him again and cursing the way you'd expect a ball player to.

Once James is finally really gone, Rache and Becca flank me and tell me not to listen to a word he says 'cause he's a little chicken shit but it's kind of too late. I've already heard him.

Phil calms down eventually and the party resumes but it doesn't take long for him to find me and ask if I'm okay. This time when I say I'm fine, _'Really'_, he believes me and I let him 'cause it's their day, not mine. And when the party's over and we head home, I'm more than a little dizzy from all the glasses of champagne Becca and I drank while no one was looking and Rachel was busy flirting with that huge biker Paul.

Once Phil and Renée find their way to their room, Renée giggling like a schoolgirl when Phil calls it _'our room'_, I close my bedroom door and sneak out to find Becca.

I get to the Black's place and it's already dark 'cause Billy expects all his kids to be home at midnight – and they are – so he turns off all the outside lights. I climb through Becca's window at the side of the house, like I always do, and soon we're stuffing a wet rag under her door and I let her take the lead as I pull potent comfort into my lungs.

We stay hidden in her room, quietly puffing in smoke and sipping the hot whiskey she keeps hidden in her closet, and I think of how different she is from her siblings. I wonder why their mom's death affected them all so differently and how she gets away with as much as she does without getting caught, and if she blames her mom being gone and her dad being half a man on that boy Sam who crashed his old Buick into their minivan that day how many summers ago. And with that airy ease clouding my head, I just ask her.

She's not even offended. She just laughs and snarks that Ms. Clearwater thinks her dad's all man, and that he's too busy keeping Rache from flunking out of her senior year and Jacob from having his ass handed to him by some girl's boyfriend to go looking for shit to fuck with in her life. And then I'm so out of it I say Jacob's seen more pussy than a gynecologist, and she says not to talk about her little brother like I'm already tasting his cock.

It's such a weird thing to say 'cause I'm not even thinking about Jacob like that at all. It's so far off that I just stare at her for a moment, completely confused, and then she smiles that pretty lazy smile that slides across her face like melted butter and I know she's just kidding...kind of...probably. But probably she wants me to know her brother is off limits, so I say _'Fuck you,'_ and climb back out of her window, half-baked and all sorts of pissed off and hurt.

As I round the corner, I see Jake leaned against the house with a cigarette between his lips, and then he's in my face talking 'bout how the Chief's daughter smells like pot and how my daddy wouldn't like it, so I say _'Fuck you,'_ and then press my lips to his lips and slide my tongue against his tongue to spite them all.

I spend the next twenty minutes with my back pressed against the side of the Black's house with Jacob pressed against my front and his fingers in my hair and on my neck and on my waist and eventually in my underwear.

When I finally leave, I walk along the beach until dusk, humming to myself and wishing I had Becca's whiskey or brother to keep me company as I let the salty air replace the smokey smell just in case Phil and Renée picks today to raid my room for dirty laundry.

I get home just before dawn and fall asleep soaking in the bathroom. I wake up just in time to see the sun rise. The water's cold and my fingers look like prunes and this time when I drain the tub, I don't feel any better.


	3. Chapter 3

Once the weekend's over, I'm not so angry with Becca, but as we meet in the school's lot, I see she's still plenty angry with me. Before I can even turn off the engine, she's storming away from the car she shares with Rachel and her brother and coming over to meet me, Jake trailing behind her, obviously amused. She's already calling me a bitch and a slut and screaming, '_He's my baby brother!_' and '_How could you!_' and I'm not even mad but still, I'm in no mood to deal with her shit, so I tell her that he's sixteen and old enough to run his own life and then I say that it's not even like I've fucked him or anything, and the expression on her face tells me he's told her otherwise. Fucking Jacob Black.

'_You're a little shit, Jake,_' I say to his stupid-handsome face. I push past him as he makes lewd gestures with his tongue between his fingers and he just follows me, trying to swat at my ass, and his sister's behind us, still brewing with anger, and when she catches up to me, stomping her feet in those workman's boots she likes to wear, she's wishing under her breath that I'd catch all sorts of venereal diseases. And I just ignore her because I know her anger will burn out soon and I have no plans to re-light that fire once it's gone by doing anything else with her dickhead brother, who's getting all sorts of shady smiles from the other guys in his grade as they hoot and holler at me and give him high-fives. And then when we reach the wide steps in front of the school's main entrance and Becca notices, she finally asks me if I really didn't sleep with him and I tell her that I really didn't, and she turns to Jake and decks him so hard I'm sure there'll be bruises on her knuckles and his jaw by lunchtime. And I know that we'll be okay.

The other kids in school, they don't even have time to gossip about me and Jake or Jake and Becca because pretty soon some angry beast of car that puts my old Wrangler to shame comes roaring down the street, only it's not a car at all, it's this totally bad-ass monstrous bike, handled by that huge guy Rachel's been hounding lately, and so I look to tease her about 'her man' and realize she wasn't with Becca and Jake this morning. And before I have any time to think on it further, the bike comes to a stop in front of us. He cuts off the engine and it makes this sort of sad stinted whimper, and I recognize the tiny hands wrapped around Paul's waist, the wrist adorned with that little silver bracelet with the wooden wolf Jake gave Rachel (and Becca) on her birthday a couple years ago. And then Rachel's slipping off the back and handing Paul a helmet. Her skirt's bunched up so high I can see her bright red cheekies and she's smiling so hard when he uses his long rough fingers to tug down the denim fabric. I can see the way his hand lingers for just a moment and then curves around her thigh, giving it a little squeeze, and then there's nothing left of him but smoke and dust as he drives away.

Rachel approaches us, all smiles and giggles, and I can see her and Becca having one of their irritating silent twin mind-conversations and then she's looks at me and says, '_Hey, slut. I heard you did my brother._' And I kind of want to slap her because Becca and I have just dealt with this issue and I'd rather not rehash it so soon, but she's smiling a real-Rache smile at me and I know she's really just kidding. I say it anyway, just in case, and she says, _'Obviously. Even your standards aren't low enough to fuck Jake,_' and she's just razzing us both, poking him in the ribs with her elbow and connecting her other arm with mine, and then everything's cool.

We're halfway to our lockers when I notice Jake's still following us, weird because he usually does his own thing, but I think nothing of it. Instead I say, '_What's up with you and that Paul dude?_' and Rache just smile's that real-Rache smile and lifts one-shoulder at me in a sad attempt at a shrug. She says they spent time together at Phil and Renee's wedding and then after it, and I _oooh_ at her in that way we did back in junior high when one of us looked at a boy too long or mentioned his name too much. '_He's cool,_' she says, and I immediately know this crush must be serious because Rachel's always the first to gush about the guy she's chasing and she _has_ been gushing about Paul for _weeks_, so why so quiet now? Now that she's riding to school on the back of his Harley and he's touching her thigh and giving her sweet eyes? I say as much and she says, '_Shut up,_' and first bell's about to ring, so I do – but not before catching Becca's eyes and wriggling my eyebrows and my hips behind her back.

It's the last couple of weeks before finals so while teachers are trying to be intense with mind-numbing reviews for finals, the rest of us are just biding time until summer break. Really, the only class where we're even expected to still be here (both physically _and_ mentally) is Phys Ed, and while I wish I could just sit on the bleachers and twirl my hair while faking some major stomach cramps, I know I can't afford any more unprepareds or I'll be sweating my ass off in summer school. So I grin and I bear it and move at a snail's pace even though we're supposed to be running the mile. Whatever. It's already too fucking hot and I know there's no way I'm getting anything higher than whatever counts for passing anyway.

And although some of the football team always flings the stupid pigskin around during last period, this period, and they have been for the past nine or so months, today is the first day one of the oversized players comes crashing off the field, into the track, and knocks me off my feet. And of course, it's Jake and instead of standing up like normal and getting away from me, he rolls over some more so that he's practically laying on top of me and I feel my breath whoosh out of my lungs. I tell him to fuck off, and before he does, he just smiles at me and slicks his tongue against his lips. And as he's jogging back to his boys, that Call kid and Quil something-or-other, they're both staring at me and smiling their sleazy little-boy sophomore smiles.

Seriously, fuck Jacob Black.


End file.
